Me and You
by Lanie McCoy
Summary: Short short character sketches.
1. Zuko: Supposed Conqueror

We used to be happy. We used to be free.

I read about it in history texts.

But with the fall of the Avatar, we took our supposed role as conquerors of the Nations and captured everyone. Slowly, one by one, we took over the entire world.

At least, we tried to. We still do try. We fight every single day to defeat our enemies who have never harmed us. We fight to find the Avatar and capture him before he can come of age and defeat us all. We fight to keep our hold on an invisible leash around the world and control the Nations we rule with fear. We fight because we are afraid.

We are all afraid. My father is afraid to lose control over the rest of the world. General Zhao is afraid to lose power to my father. I am afraid to lose any liberties I have left to General Zhao. My soldiers are afraid of me as any good underlings are afraid of their commander. The rest of the world is afraid of my army and the harm it has done to them.

The Avatar and his friends are afraid of losing.

They cannot afford to lose, for it will mean that the Fire Nation has won and the rest of the world is at our command. But that will only lead to new fears they cannot foresee: will the world rise up and overthrow us? Will the Avatar secretly master his power and destroy us all? Will we find conflict within our own ranks and hold an easily beaten and shaky dominance?

I couldn't say.

I don't have all the answers.

That's right, I like to pretend. I like to order people around and yell at them for not knowing answers to questions I couldn't answer if my life depended on it. I like to put up a front.

But I'm insecure, and I don't control my power completely. Winning one or two Agni Khai doesn't make for a great leader, no matter who is beaten. So like any other man in command who should not be, I mask my fear with anger.

I should not be in so much control, I can see. I am only sixteen and I have no business running an entire army. I have been hunting the Avatar for far too long now, since I was fourteen and even less qualified. All things I learned of rule have come from experience, and while that might be a good thing under different circumstances, it is no way for a child to learn to have power. Not on such a scale as this.

But I'll yell and scream and chase the Avatar and his friends as they evade my fire-blackened hand, time after time, and this running race will go on for eternity. He will dance just out of my reach and I will continue until the day I die, trying to find him and tie him to the ground.

He will win, of that I am certain. His steps are not complex, but they are quick and sprightly. He has the unpredictable habit of staying ahead of me, and while that itself should make him predictable, it does not. He makes no plans, and so I cannot guess at something that does not exist.

So I will fight on because it is all I know how to do. I will not submit to his magic, be it greater or lesser than my own. I will keep up my mantra because it gives me strength when I have none. I will not admit defeat.

I will capture the Avatar.


	2. Katara: Hard to be Me

People say it's hard to be the older of two siblings.

Well people don't know what they're talking about.

It's hard to be the protector, not the elder. Often the two overlap as the same unit, so the terms are used interchangeably, but they are not always the same. At least I don't think they are. I love Sokka, of course… It's hard not to form close ties with your family in this day and age. They are necessary to survival. Allies are necessary, and who better than one's own brother?

But having a big brother is hard when I'm an aspiring Waterbender and he's…just a boy.

I know, I know, that sounds selfish. Arrogant, even. But it's true, and I can't help that. I might just be the last surviving Waterbender in all of the South, and Sokka can't appreciate that, just a little? He supports me, but it took someone like Aang to make him show that support in anything more than subtle hints and brotherly love.

And Aang… Oh, what am I to do with Aang…

He is the savior of the world, and my new best friend. How many people can say exactly that? Only me, I guess.

It's a great trick, though. He is more than my new best friend; I care for him in ways precariously balanced between friendship and love. He is my best friend, but I have known him for a very short time… Love cannot be denied, yet I am not one to judge what is and what is not… 

I would sacrifice myself for him, but is that because I am selfless and willing to help the world? No, not really. I would like to think so, as we all would, but it isn't true.

I would give my own life so that Aang could live because I want him to have the chance. I've heard that the willingness is the ultimate sign of love, but still I'm not sure. I care for Aang, yet I don't care that much. I've no experience in the matter, so I can't be sure…but it feels so right, yet at the same time so forbidden…and I want it, but I don't, but I do, but I don't…

A never ending series of "yes" and "no."

Does Sokka really care?

Do I really love Aang?

Will I really become a Waterbender?

Are the answers really out there?

Maybe. 

Who am I to say?

I'm…just a girl.


	3. Commander Zhao: Led from Victory

People think I have everything I could want, given my position. I was recently promoted from captain to commander, I have the Avatar in my sights, my greatest rival is banished from his very homeland.

They're all wrong. They have no idea. No idea of the horrors I go through, trying to run an army under these conditions.

What sorts of soldiers have I been handed by the Fire Lord? Merely common army men. I have nothing to work with, no way to get ahead of the banished prince. Isn't that what we all want, to be the very best? I used to be the best, above all the other fire warriors. At least, until that brat made his great comeback.

Ah, but wait. I remain the best but for one small detail: the prince gets lucky.

That's all it is, really. He is no better than I. During the attack on Avatar Roku's temple, did he escape with his cunning and wit? No. It was a wave of fire from the Avatar, trying to hit all of us, that broke his chains and set him free. Then he ran, ran like a coward.

He ran as he has always run. The banished prince, disobeying his father's orders never to return, thought he could sneak by because he was chasing the Avatar. He thought I would understand.

Does he not realize that the only way to survive in this war is to take what you can get and disregard all else?

Traveling with that weakling uncle of his must have made him soft.

They are both weak, too weak to be associated with the Fire Nation. I cannot believe that the uncle, the once great General Iroh, is related to the great Fire Lord Ozai. I cannot believe that the boy, Prince Zuko, was raised on our very mountains and shores. Disgraceful.

But are we not partially to blame for these abominations? After all, we masters of fire did train Zuko, and while I cannot blame Fire Lord Ozai for his brother's alliance to Lord Ozai's own son, those treacherous thoughts are not something natural with old age.

The two have been allowed to grow too close. The boy trusts his guardian and the elder believes in his prince.

That is no way to run an army.


	4. Sokka: Backseat Driver

Have you ever met one person who completely changed your views on everything? They completely flipped your world upside down and suddenly nothing was the way you had always known it to be.

It was a little like that when Katara and I started traveling to the North Pole with Aang.

I had always—or at least, for as long as I can remember—been the leader of a small, admittedly pathetic, army. I had been the one in control, the one to say "This is right and that is wrong." But then Aang comes along with his penguin sledding and flying bison and suddenly I'm not even a backseat driver. The guy even ate my seal blubber jerky!

But it's so hard to stay mad at him. He's so nice, and so…not understood. He needs friends, and no one else will just accept him for who he is. It's all, "Avatar" this, "Avatar" that. Never just "Aang."

Despite all the fame and glory and everything, despite the fact that we're friends, a part of me is jealous of him. No one takes me for joyrides in the Spirit World atop some giant dead dragon. No one asks me to save their village from attacking Firebenders. No one says that only I can prevent destruction.

Now as I stop to think about it, no one ever says…anything.

It's never "Sokka, save us!" It's never "Sokka, help me!" It's never "Sokka, you can do it!" It's always "Aang, you're the best and I know you can do it if you put your mind to it!"

I shouldn't be bitter. I mean, the guy's only twelve, and he's trying to save the world as only the Avatar can. I should support him the way friends support each other, the way they have each others' backs. The way I keep telling him I've got his back.

It's my job, I guess.

But when I say it, I can't help thinking that it sounds a little forced. Lurking just behind that reassuring confidence-booster is some of that resentment, some of that bitterness. I fear that one day, he'll see it, or Katara will see it, and they'll confront me. Or worse yet, the enemy will see it and use it to tear us apart.

I don't want us to be torn apart. I may be a jealous friend, but I am still a friend, and that should count for something. He affected me—he still does, all the time. He changes the way I look at things. Like maybe this whole "reincarnated Avatar" business isn't all the nonsense I cracked it up to be. Maybe Waterbending and Airbending and Earthbending and Firebending aren't just elaborate magic tricks. Maybe the Avatar really will save the world.

He can do anything, after all.

Why not that?

Let's just put our lives in Aang's hands, the way we've been trained to do. It's a pretty safe bet no one will put their lives under my command, and the world does need somewhere to turn.

I'm not "the Avatar."


	5. Uncle Iroh: Flipside Coins

The first thing you would notice about me, if seeing me for the first time, is that I am an old man. I will not try to deny it to anyone, because it is true. I am a Firebender, and I am an ex-general, and I am a brother, and I am an uncle, but I am also an old man.

It is not an excuse. I do not claim to have lost my edge or my wit, or exchanged them for a love of ginseng tea. I merely want you to understand.

I would defend the Fire Nation with all my power, because it is my binding duty as brother to the Fire Lord. But before I protect my home, I will protect my nephew, for he is young and rash, and does not always know what he is getting himself into. He is a strong leader, willing to fight for what he believes is right. My only fear is that he does not always know what is right for him from what is right for everyone.

It is my fear that, as an old man, I will not always be able to stop Prince Zuko from making foolish choices in his life, and that I should not always stop him. True, he does sometimes need my guidance, but he does not always, and he will not always. He is already at the age in his life when he does not ask for help when he should. The maturity process has only been sped for him, as he was rushed into adulthood by his father and his desperate quest for the Avatar.

This is both a bad thing and a good one.

It is a bad thing in that he has missed many opportunities to be a young boy as he skipped ahead to a young man pretending to be an aged scholar. He has moved on to the isolated age at which he thinks his way is the only way. I feel sorry for him, I must say. He will never know the pleasures of carefree afternoons playing in the sun, or soothing baths in the hot springs after a hard day's work. He is too tense for such things now.

It is a good thing, however, in that he has adapted to the world around him. In an environment which does not readily accept weakness, he has learned to become strong and face his fears and his enemies. He will strive for what he wants and change what he does not like. He does not readily surrender in the face of overwhelming odds.

True, that is a double sided coin; he does know that he cannot give up easily, but he does not know when victory is simply an impossibility.

He will not listen to me when I tell him he cannot win. I am only an old man, tired and ragged in my exhaustion as my prime has long since passed.

But I hope that Prince Zuko is ready for his challenges, and ready for what he will not come to me with. I think that it is right to learn from experience, and I can only hope that he does not let his experience drag him down when he fails.

I do not think it will be a problem, really. I am only an old man, and I do not think I could face all that he has…but he is a young fighter with a strong will and a strong heart.

I think that we will both be all right.


	6. Aang: Not So Normal

I'm a pretty atypical guy.

No, really. Think about it. I'm the Avatar, for one thing. I've got hundreds of other lives stuck inside of me, and the memories they carried with them. Hundreds of memories, hundreds of personalities and opinions and minds.

And even as Avatars go, I'm not normal. I've got to master all the elements by the end of the summer when I'm supposed to have years. I've got to single-handedly stop a world war, and I'm only twelve years old.

The other Avatars had to keep peace, I guess, but they didn't have to stop any wars. They didn't have to hold off the Fire Nation from invading. They didn't have the same pressures I do.

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad to have my friends. I couldn't ask for a better animal guide than Appa. Sokka is one of the best friends a guy could ever ask for; he can make anybody laugh, and he's always there when I need a little support. Katara is the most amazing girl I've ever met; she's nice, and driven, and pretty, and she really cares about me for me, not for my Avatar spirit.

But they can't understand everything I've been through, and everything I have to go through still. It's true, Sokka and Katara lost their mother to the Firebenders, and Appa lost the Air Nomads the same way I did. But Sokka and Katara don't have to master three different elements in only a few short months, and Appa doesn't even have to learn any Bending at all.

It's true that Sokka has to learn how to be a warrior, and Katara has to completely master Waterbending…and Appa has to carry us all around the entire world…

But it's not the same! No one has to deal with the things I do, and no one can possibly understand. I thought that maybe Avatar Roku would be able to help me, but all he did was give me a bigger challenge. How am I supposed to seek his advice when I can't get back to his temple? If the answers are all inside of me, why would I have the questions in the first place? He can't know what it's like to be me.

No one can know what it's like to be me. I'm atypical, after all. Right?

I think so.

I have to master the Bending arts.

But Katara has to become a master Waterbender.

I have to save the world.

But Sokka will always have my back.

I have to be the Avatar.

But my friends will risk their lives to help me.

Maybe I'm not so abnormal after all.


	7. Haru: Fire on the Water

This is the life of a Bender.

So I've been told.

I am to conceal myself and under absolutely no circumstances may I fight for what is right. I must hide my talents from the Fire Nation, who may appear at any moment and seek out Earthbenders. If I escape the village for any time, it must only be to gather food or supplies. If anyone is to see me Earthbend, I am to run from him and make sure he does not follow me back to the village.

But this should be the life of no man.

A Bender is nothing if not a man.

This is the life of no Bender.

When the Avatar and his friends visited our humble town, I saw a Bender living life the way it should be led. The Waterbender Katara was happy to be alive, happy to be who she was, happy to be a Bender. She was happy with her life.

I am not happy to be alive, nor am I happy to be a Bender, nor am I happy with my life.

I do not wish for death. That is the path of a true coward. But to live in this manner, as nothing but a tool kept hidden in the shadows, is no life for me. I am not truly happy if I cannot Bend, and I cannot truly Bend as long as the Fire Nation occupies our shores, and I hate my life when I cannot Bend and be happy.

So I live out a life of loathing and bitterness, letting it fester in my heart until the day the Fire Nation is no more.

I will live to see the Fire Nation's demise. I am sure of it. For I have faith in the Avatar, and I have faith in the forces trying to stop the Fire Nation. I will not call those forces "good," because who is to say what is good and what is not? Who is to call the Fire Nation "evil"? Would that be because they are ruthless in attaining their goals? So am I, though… Am I a force of evil?

I would like to think that I am not.

I practice the illegal art of Earthbending amidst the unfair and brutal Fire Navy's reign, but I am not evil. I am trying to do what is right for my people and myself.

Though I suppose, as I stop to reconsider, that I am doing more to help myself than I am to help my village.

As is clear, Earthbending is not allowed, especially in the village. My practicing it in the wilderness, never to work it at home, is not helping my people in any way. Yet I promise myself that I would not risk endangering myself and thereby, my mother, with my skills. Even in secret—especially in secret—how can my Earthbending do anything but risk harming myself or my mother? She is old, frail, and strong-minded. She depends on me to support her and I cannot disappoint.

Is that what I am doing? Unintentionally harming my mother as I selfishly try to perfect my artistry?

But I am an Earthbender! No one can expect me not to Earthbend. That much was made clear by the Waterbender Katara. She was strong-minded and strong-willed, stronger than I, and willing to rise up against the Fire Navy even with no support from us, the cowards of the Earth Temple. Even without the support of her brother, the warrior Sokka, or her friend, the Avatar Aang, she rallied against the Fire Navy and tried to gain our trust.

She failed…but at no fault of her own.

We of the Earth Temple were weak.

I do not entirely know why we did help her, in the end. We did not suddenly gain the courage of ten thousand men, nor did we see any sort of light. We were only…encouraged? No, we were not encouraged to come to her aid. We were shamed. Shamed by our weakness, shamed that we had brought that weakness on ourselves.

Shamefully, we helped the Waterbender Katara.

Selfishly, we tried to purge ourselves of that shame.

Greedily, we drank up our success and called ourselves pure.

No single victory can extricate from us that horrible weakness, that submissive defeat.

We will carry with us, for the rest of our lives, the fact that we could have used the ship's fueling coal to Earthbend, and we would have saved the Waterbender Katara and her companions the trouble of liberating us. But we were not clever. We were not clearheaded or observant.

We did not attempt to win our freedom, so we forced a young girl and her friends to do it for us.

I would like to say it is all the Fire Nation's fault for putting us in such a position in the first place, but I cannot lie. I was weak, and in my moments of weakness, I turned to any help I could find.

Such is the life of a Bender.


	8. Fire Lord Ozai: Blood Ties

Why does the Fire Nation fight to control the world?

It is not a disputed question, really. It is an undeniable truth. The Fire Nation fights to control the world because we are strong. They, the other Nations, are weak, and need to be dominated. In order for the world to run smoothly, there must be a single leader, and I am best suited for the task. It cannot be denied.

The coming of the comet will do nothing but aid in our quest. The Earth Nation will try to stop it. The Water Nation will try to run from it. The Air Nation…well, the Air Nation has not been a problem for one hundred years. The Fire Nation has not threatened rebellion once. In fact, the only things that could pose a threat are…

The Avatar and my own son.

The Avatar is fated to stop the Fire Nation from succeeding. His legend has been passed down for generations. But that does not mean the legend is right; the Fire Nation has power unimaginable, and the Avatar is a mere boy.

The last surviving shred of the art of Air Bending rests in the hands of one twelve year old boy and his two friends.

Those friends will be his downfall, I predict. As I proved when I banished my own son, friends and sentimentalities are weaknesses. They are used by enemies as temptations to walk straight into traps, and as bartering pieces. Not allies. Not for me, at least.

Banishing my son was a tactical move, I admit, but he did not need to understand. He is merely a child. Trying to explain it to him would be like trying to explain the Fire Nation's reasons for being to a hulking rhinoceros.

But why did he need to be expelled from the Fire Nation? For two reasons, you could say. One is obvious: the more sights we have out for the Avatar, the better it will be for our success rate. We cannot afford to have the boy running around learning Bending when our own soldiers have barely managed to learn to Firebend. The weaklings will severely slow us down.

We try our very hardest, taking any advantages which come our way and exploiting them to their utmost. The comet is only one example, but it might be the best. We will harness the thing's power and use it to dominate the network of allies trying to rally against us.

The second is, perhaps, harder to see: he will only get in our way.

No matter how "mature" he may be, or pretend to be, Zuko is still a boy, and we cannot have him running around underfoot while we try to conquer the world. It would do more harm than good, and I cannot afford to be a father amidst the turmoil of war.

Let the boy learn Firebending on his own time. It will serve him as he serves me.

Fire is a destructive force, as it is.

Earth is a shield. Water is a deterrent. Air is a trick.

Fire is a vessel of raw power.

Because we are the strongest, and we are the most resourceful, and we are the greatest, we will rule over the other, weaker nations, with the Avatar bowing at our feet.

Things will work out all right for the Fire Nation. I will be sure of that.

No matter what may stand in our way.


	9. Jet: Taking Sides

"Hi. I'm Jet."

And such it begins.

A twisting game of human emotion and human compromise. Of course, no real compromise can be reached, not in this game. It isn't even a game—it's survival. More accurately, our survival over theirs. The twisting of emotion comes when outsiders venture into our territory. Either we get them on our side, or they are against us. No one comes for free.

As it was when Katara came to visit us. Fortunately, she was on our side. That is, she was, until that brat of a brother turned her and the boy against us. Katara would have made the perfect addition to our coterie, but her brother had to explain our plans and turn her against us.

I suppose, in the long run, it's for the best that he told. If Katara was so willing to side with him over us, so unable to see our side of the story, so devoted to that boy who called himself the Avatar, well, then she wouldn't have been very trustworthy, would she?

But we could have shaped her to see the world our way. I know we could have! If only we were given the chance to, we could have opened her eyes. She is not meant to live in wartime, I see that now. She is too soft-hearted, too willing to listen to all sides before reacting.

If she were faced with a Firebender, with a hunter's knife in her hand, would she be able to do what needed to be done?

No.

And that is what makes her so useless to us.

She cannot see things the right way. She sees them the idealist's way. She sees them with a solution, with a resolution that will leave us all satisfied, but the real world, the real lives out there every day trying to stop the Fire Nation, they don't see it that way. They see it as it should be seen: as war. Losses are unavoidable, and if a few villagers have to be wiped out in exchange for the lives of a dozen Fire Nation soldiers, then so be it.

What I cannot understand is how Katara's loyalties were swayed so easily. First she would do anything for me, then she would do anything to stop me, then she regretted hurting me… Such an easily influenced one cannot be trusted. We would need to mold her to our ideals if she were ever to side with us.

But, in a sense, I would regret that. Her spirit, while a challenge to fix, would never quite be the same if we took her under our wings. The vitality in her, the thing that would make her such a powerful tool, would be…gone.

I don't know if I could do that.

Though, if it would stop the Fire Nation, I would have no choice. Sacrifices must be made, and if turning Katara into the kind of person we need her to be would win us this war, then so be it.

There would be no turning back. I would change such a lively girl into a drone of my own creation, if it would lead to success. I would break her down and rebuild her into something I could use. I would become a doctor of epic proportions.

I have become something I might regret.

I just can't stop to think about it.


	10. Suki: Just Don't Say

"Suki is a good leader," they all say. "Suki will get us through to tomorrow. Suki will know just what to do."

Their faith in me is staggering.

"Suki will not fail," they all say.

But I am only one girl.

Sometimes, I am afraid of becoming like the Fire Nation itself. I am afraid of losing what makes me Suki, what makes me a girl trying to fight in a war to save her people and herself. I am afraid of losing my personality, you could say. Of becoming another masked suit of armor in the midst of a fight for survival.

This has not been a fight for dominance in several years. The Fire Nation lost that ticket a long time ago.

As we train and practice, we gain a little something of ourselves. We become one, for that brief moment in time when we are synchronized and perfect. We become a single entity, prepared to fight to our deaths against the Fire Nation because we know that we will not die. We gain fearlessness in our strength, and it only makes us stronger.

But then we are suddenly all separate again. We are suddenly not moving in time with one another, and we are not one entity going to fight a war we do not really hope to win. That fearlessness is gone, and the fact that it ever existed becomes a weakness.

"Face your fears," I say, "face them and become warriors. Become strong because you confront yourself. Face your fears and do not be afraid."

Why not be afraid, every once in awhile? I am afraid sometimes, certainly. I am afraid of failure, of letting down everyone who trusts in me. I am afraid of losing, of giving up all I have fought so hard to defend. I am afraid of dying, the way any child is afraid of dying. Just because I am a soldier does not mean I am not a human being. A child, nonetheless. I am merely a girl forced to grow into a woman far too fast.

I enjoy play as any child does, but I am the one who needs to restrict that play and forge it into work. I need to make an army out of my sisters and my friends, and I need to make it the best it can be. I need to say "fight" and have them ask "whom shall we fight? For how long shall we fight them?"

I need to make them into warriors.

That would be easy, I should think, but therein lies the problem: I need to make them into warriors like me. Warriors who are still human, I mean. Warriors with morals, with personalities, with emotions. Humans with things to love and things to hate. Humans who are still human, who, when given the chance, still know how to play.

If I handed you a ball, what would you do with it? Would you throw it away? Would you know what to play? Would you bounce it? Would you throw it? Would you catch it?

Would you tell me I was mad? There is a war going on, Suki, we have no time for silly things like balls.

To you I say, there is a war going on, my friend, we have no time for silly things like forgetting how to play games. We must be humans who do what normal humans beings do and who think what normal human beings think and who say what normal human beings say.

We will listen and when we receive an order, we will obey. When someone says "play," we will say "yes, let us play because it is fun."

Just don't say "fight."


	11. Monk Gyatso: Make Believe

The key to life has not been discovered, and I would not think that it ever will be.

But for now, all we need to know is that the balance of work and play is important to surviving.

A child desires what is best for him because he is wise. A child knows nothing of discrimination or hatred and so he loves what is good to him. The little boy loves ice cream just as the little girl does, and any child loves a person who is kind to him. It is the responsibility of the elder to know and to do what is going to be best for the child in the future, because the child needs do nothing more than live in the moment.

That is a lesson many of us could afford to remember.

Take Aang, for instance. All of the monks of the temple consider themselves to be his guardians, but few are concerned with his well being. More are worried for what he can—or should I say, what he must do for the world.

Aang may be the avatar, but he is also a child. He needs to play and to live in the moment, just as any child does. He is wise and he knows this, but it is the fault of others that he cannot act on it. The other children neglect and outcast him, and the other monks attempt to force studies and labor on him.

I do neither, because I know that as a child, he must learn to get his butt kicked at games just as much as he must learn to Airbend properly.

Oh, but listen to me praise myself. I am not an arrogant man. I do not mean to place myself above others. It is only what I have seen that makes me say these things.

I went to comfort Aang, after all, and to tell him that he was accepted by me if not the others. I meant not to make myself look good to him, but to make him feel as though he had somewhere to turn and someone to rely on when times became too difficult.

I suppose I was a little bit too late.

He was already gone when I arrived, and it would not shock you to hear that I was afraid. The avatar should not have been running around on his own without proper training, especially at such a young age. Aang was suffering in his mind and in his heart. He was not ready to be the avatar, and he was not ready to be called different by boys he thought to be his friends.

I wonder where he went. I suppose if anyone knew he was the avatar, it would be the Fire Nation, and they would capture him. I would hear about something that drastic. But it is encroaching upon the rainy season, and I would not be surprised to see great storms coming about. Aang would be in danger, riding on the flying bison of his.

A great part of me wants to leave the temple and search for him. I wish to play his guardian, his father, in a sense, and protect him from hard. But another part of me says that if I did run after him, I would only bring him back, and he would be miserable without friends. Not only without friends, but seeing the boys who used to be his friends pretending he did not exist.

A father, or even the father figure I pretend to be, could not force that on his son. Or even the pretend son that I think of Aang as.

I could not crush the last remains of that breaking spirit. So I will protect my pretend son the way that I think is best: by letting him go off on his own to be the avatar.

I only hope it is not too great of a mistake.


	12. Momo: Animal Instinct

You think I'm simpleminded. You think that just because I'm not human, I must be inferior. I might be able to learn, to perform "human" tasks, to listen and to understand, but I'm not human. I'm just a pet, a companion. A furry creature who comes along on his master's adventures and who is sometimes asked for help.

But I like to think I'm a little better than that.

Sure, I can't speak. I might not be quite as smart or quite as experienced as your average human. But I've got potential to learn, and I've got instinct. I'm not prejudiced or bigoted. I do what I feel is right—I do what basic animal instinct tells me is right.

I don't just sit back and act inferior like a good little lemur. It's true that like a lot of creatures who are not quite human, I might be ruled by my stomach, but I do more than fend for myself. I lift spirits, I play games. I might not be critical to the team…but you never know, do you? At least, I don't.

What if I wasn't there? True, my team, as I might call them, survived well enough without me, but aside from being physically useful—fitting into small holes is no easy task for even a partially grown human—I'm a friendly pet. I admit it. It's not such a bad thing. just being around an unconditionally friendly and loving…well, friend can be just what the average human needs.

They're not superheroes. They're not even especially super. Humans are just animals with a few extra brain cells and opposable thumbs. More importantly, they're pack animals. They need other humans around to…be. To survive. Or, bar actual human contact, they need some kind of living creature to love and to love them in return.

Who better than a smarter-than-average pet?

That's all I am, after all. A smart-as-a-cat, loyal-as-a-dog, useful-as-a-bird hybrid. I might have been bred as a step up from carrier pigeon, for all I know. I might even be natural. It's really up in the air. I do eat bugs, after all. Humans don't like bugs, so naturally they would breed a creature who would eat them, but nature does like bugs and it breeds them by the barrelful, so any creature who eats them would never have a shortage of sustenance.

But aside from what I do or don't eat, what I do or don't do, what I do or don't say, I'm really just a step sideways from human. Maybe that's why I exist. Humans might have been trying to breed themselves a genetic advantage: a little human with wings. He would evolve into his intellect in time, no need to rush things along.

Do I care too much?

No, not really. I don't mind having only "near human" intelligence. I have my versatility and mobility and basic intellect, but without the prejudice and potential negative influence. Why? Because I'm not smart enough to have my own opinion. All I've got is animal instinct.

I'm a freak of nature with opposable thumbs.

And that's just all right with me.


End file.
